The fundamental plane of cluster elliptical galaxies at z=1.25

Using deep Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging and Very Large Telescope FOcal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 spectra, we determined the velocity dispersions, effective radii, and surface brightnesses for four early-type galaxies in the z = 1.237 cluster RDCS 1252.9 - 2927. All four galaxies are massive, greater than 10(11) M-.. These four galaxies, combined with three from RDCS 0848 + 4453 at z = 1.276, establish the fundamental plane of massive early-type cluster galaxies at (z) over bar = 1.25. The offset of the fundamental plane shows that the luminosity evolution in rest-frame B is Deltaln(M/L-B) = (-0.98 +/- 0.06)z for galaxies with M > 10(11.5) M-.. To reproduce the observed mass-to-light ratio (M/L) evolution, we determine the characteristic age of the stars in these M > 10(11.5) M-. galaxies to be 3.0(-0.3)(+0.3) Gyr; i.e., z* = 3.4(-0.4)(+0.5). Including selection effects caused by morphological bias (the "progenitor bias"), we estimate an age of 2.1(-0.2)(+0.2) Gyr, or z* = 2.3(-0.2)(+0.2) for the elliptical galaxy population. Massive cluster early-type galaxies appear to have a large fraction of stars that formed early in the history of the universe. However, there is a large scatter in the derived M/L values, which is confirmed by the spread in the galaxies' colors. Two lower mass galaxies in our sample have much lower values, implying significant star formation close to the epoch of observation. Thus, even in the centers of massive clusters, there appears to have been significant star formation in some massive, M similar or equal to 10(11) M-., galaxies at z similar or equal to 1.5